DCAngelsFan

That must've been so hard on the family - much respect to Max for being there throughout,  and very happy for them and that baby Jax will be home soon.

That must've been so hard on the family - much respect to Max for being there throughout,  and very happy for them and that baby Jax will be home soon.

Can't imagine Epstein would come here without being part of ownership, with large financial reserves he can tap, and the freedom to make decisions.  To get that, Arte has to sell control.
This past season has probably made the club much less valuable than last year - would Arte's ego tolerate him going out with a 9 figure decline in value, and near-universal derision over his tenure?  You'd think that'd make him wash his hands, but I think it's just as likely to make him dig in.
I've always said the worst news last offseason was him deciding not to sell the team.
The man is cancer to this team, and it'll never get better until he gives up control. 

Time for Arte to fuel up the yacht and take a cruise to the DR ...
 
 

Owner or not, the key is control.  I just can't imagine Arte giving that up or Epstein trusting that he would.   

Epstein would not enter into a contract with an organization where the owner is known to under fund their entire baseball operations in favor of marquee player banners to hang in front of the box office. 

But the clock is flashing 12:00

Congrats, man, enjoy your well-earned freedom!  

Mine, that is.
35.5 years in IT
Freedom!

Nice shot by Drury. All in all, one of the best season long stories on the team. 24 homers, 80 RBIs from a versatile infielder.

This times infinity.
Keep Carpino out of it.
 

The 1995 extended, torturous collapse was the worst for me. The image of Langston sprawled across home plate in Seattle with Luis Sojo celebrating in the background. All-time low.
But dysfunctional? No. This year might take the prize. Arte changing his mind and not selling has poisoned this franchise. Then Rendon and the crazy number of injuries, some freakish.

The point of this article is what's been such a letdown to me this year. It's not that Drury and Renfroe were "big splash" adds. It's that they should have been nice back of the order bats to make the non trout/ohtani innings a game.
Like it said, Drury has been basically what I hoped for. Renfroe a huge letdown.
And obviously everyone else died.
Like mentioned above, the plan of having Drury as the 6th guy in the lineup, behind ehat should have been an impressive trout-ohtani-rendon-renfroe order should have been pretty badass.
But angels.

If Walsh is truly back, the Angels need him.

I am Ok with Ohtani leaving and taking the 6 man rotation problem with him. To over invest in a pitcher than thins out the quality of the rotation every season would never create a successful campaign for the Angels.
Every start Ohtani doesn't take is shared through the entire rotation to a 6th pitcher that is always the worst pitcher to give 27 starts to. Or worse, bullpen games, putting more stress pitchers that have to clean up the 5th or 6th inning on for the other lesser quality starters. That means more reliance on the Salt Lake shuffle, moving arms in and out of the bullpen to replace over worked arms. 
The team that goes overboard with a years and dollars contract better only need Ohtani and no other players on the roster. They have to already have a playoff contending team that can handle the burden of the 6 man rotation. Otherwise they will end up always coming up short by the games the 6th worst pitcher has lost. 

Don't give his dons any credit, except for them stopping playing fantasy baseball with real live players.
They're still pretty awful, but at least they seem to be staying out of the ops side of things (though suspending that reporter for reporting their losing record at Tropicana was on-brand for them)
Even Moreno lucked into Vlad, Trout, and Ohtani.  
 

Rendon has a fractured labia.

All in on the draft, international draft and signings.
And my frustration with Arte probably can't get any worse.  He has the worst string of debacle signings and trades of any owner, probably ever - he needs to sell, and take Carpino with him.  
Yet, these injuries - Trout's broken hamate, Walsh's Covid neurological injury, Ward being beaned,  Urshela's broken pelvis, Rengifo, (arguably) these aren't conditioning or age issues.  (Rendon, really, does it matter?)
But set them and possibly pitching aside, and yes, I still feel like there's something wrong, here.  Their home games are played in some of the most forgiving weather of any team. Young guys are being nicked and injured in ways that suggest their core strength may be neglected (obliques, lower-back, hamstrings) - sounds like they need to spend more time doing yoga and less time pumping iron.  
Looks to me like their strength and conditioning staff are kind of the typical "baseball trainer" in their background - if it were me, I'd look for someone(s) with kinesiology / biomechanics backgrounds to focus on injury prevention and not merely "performance".
Ah, that's right, Arte would rather pay "stars" like Rendon, Hamilton, and Pujols than invest in something like that ...
 
 
 
 

All in on the draft, international draft and signings.
And my frustration with Arte probably can't get any worse.  He has the worst string of debacle signings and trades of any owner, probably ever - he needs to sell, and take Carpino with him.  
Yet, these injuries - Trout's broken hamate, Walsh's Covid neurological injury, Ward being beaned,  Urshela's broken pelvis, Rengifo, (arguably) these aren't conditioning or age issues.  (Rendon, really, does it matter?)
But set them and possibly pitching aside, and yes, I still feel like there's something wrong, here.  Their home games are played in some of the most forgiving weather of any team. Young guys are being nicked and injured in ways that suggest their core strength may be neglected (obliques, lower-back, hamstrings) - sounds like they need to spend more time doing yoga and less time pumping iron.  
Looks to me like their strength and conditioning staff are kind of the typical "baseball trainer" in their background - if it were me, I'd look for someone(s) with kinesiology / biomechanics backgrounds to focus on injury prevention and not merely "performance".
Ah, that's right, Arte would rather pay "stars" like Rendon, Hamilton, and Pujols than invest in something like that ...
 
 
 
 

All in on the draft, international draft and signings.
And my frustration with Arte probably can't get any worse.  He has the worst string of debacle signings and trades of any owner, probably ever - he needs to sell, and take Carpino with him.  
Yet, these injuries - Trout's broken hamate, Walsh's Covid neurological injury, Ward being beaned,  Urshela's broken pelvis, Rengifo, (arguably) these aren't conditioning or age issues.  (Rendon, really, does it matter?)
But set them and possibly pitching aside, and yes, I still feel like there's something wrong, here.  Their home games are played in some of the most forgiving weather of any team. Young guys are being nicked and injured in ways that suggest their core strength may be neglected (obliques, lower-back, hamstrings) - sounds like they need to spend more time doing yoga and less time pumping iron.  
Looks to me like their strength and conditioning staff are kind of the typical "baseball trainer" in their background - if it were me, I'd look for someone(s) with kinesiology / biomechanics backgrounds to focus on injury prevention and not merely "performance".
Ah, that's right, Arte would rather pay "stars" like Rendon, Hamilton, and Pujols than invest in something like that ...
 
 
 
 

I hadn't heard about his family tragedy until this article. Can't even imagine having to go through that, especially so young. 
It's definitely worth reading the whole article, but here are some excerpts:
"When Kristofak got up to speak in front of his teammates, there were no nerves. His heart did not pound. His mind did not race. The words tumbled out.
It was Dec. 22, 2012, a cold afternoon in the Atlanta suburbs. Kristofak, then 15, was coming back from baseball practice with his friend. They pulled up to his home to find a large police presence encircling the house.
At first, Kristofak thought there was a fire. But he quickly realized there were no fire trucks on the scene. He jumped out of the car and raced to a police officer, who asked him about his parents.
Just a few hours earlier, Kristofak’s mom, Donna Nations Kristofak, had taken him to baseball practice.
He returned to find his mother’s black Honda Odyssey near her garage, and blood on the ground where EMTs had attempted lifesaving CPR.
It was too late. Zac’s mother, he would later learn, had been murdered by his father."
...
"Making the majors someday is about more than fulfilling his own dream. It’s about changing the narrative of his family’s name.
“I’ll get to write my own story,” Kristofak said this summer, sitting on a restaurant patio overlooking his apartment complex in Alabama. “I think that what I want to do, more than anything in life, is rewrite the Kristofak name.”
...
"When Kristofak finished sharing his story with his teammates earlier this season, Dashwood, one of Kristofak’s closest friends on the team, approached him. He was the emotional one, telling Kristofak that sharing his story that way revealed his character.
“He gained an unbelievable amount of respect — on top of the respect everybody already has for him,” said Angels prospect Kenyon Yovan, Kristofak’s Double-A roommate. “Everyone is always there for him.”
Kristofak wants to be an open book. He believes his story might help people get through their own painful moments.
“I think he understands his purpose a little better than most of us,” said Boyer. “I think Zac truly wants to help people that are hurting.
“His scars are what make him incredible.”
 

That was awful, it reminded me of Conigliaro and I wondered if he'd make it back - thankfully, seems his eyesight wasn't affected.   
He has a good attitude, it seems, I hope he comes back to what he was.
If there was a last straw that broke the back of our season, this might've been it
Thanks for sharing
 

That was awful, it reminded me of Conigliaro and I wondered if he'd make it back - thankfully, seems his eyesight wasn't affected.   
He has a good attitude, it seems, I hope he comes back to what he was.
If there was a last straw that broke the back of our season, this might've been it
Thanks for sharing
 

I'll say this.... and everyone here is free to take it as they want.
And I've been a pretty big Moreno supporter over the years, until recently (it's past time to sell).
@Jeff Fletcher mentioned things in the org have gotten better recently. And maybe they have (I'll take his word for it).
But some years back I was having dinner with a few players. A few were Angels, the others different teams. And we were discussing who the Angels might get in the offseason. And I mentioned whoever I thought at the time they needed.
And the table basically laughed and said "no chance".
Here's the interesting part...
One of the guys told me, almost apologeticly because he knew I was an Angel fan, that "honestly bro... most guys don't want to play here." And i was kind of baffled. 
Keep in mind this wasn't too far removed from the salad years, where we were one of the best teams in baseball for a decade. And we had signed some pretty big names in recent years.
But then collectively they started complaining about how cheap the org was, in comparison to other teams.
Now keep in mind the things they mentioned, I took as "you guys are kind of fucking spoiled, if that's what you're complaining about." 
That being said, when they gave examples of what was the norm for other teams, I could at least understand why if the money is mostly equal, the perks might be the tiebreaker.
Again, like I said. The examples I was given that night to me were kind of "cmon dude, grow up." Like CJ Wilson talking about no breakfast or chick fil A. Well, my work (and I'm sure everyone else's here) doesn't give me breakfast either. 
But I could see it getting old if say you're constantly for example chartering shitty airlines or cheap hotels or something like that. If you know guys on other teams who get first class everything.